The Ministry of Culture announced that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has approved the inclusion of the Songkran Festival to its tentative list of Intangible Cultural Heritages (ICH) in December this year. If approved, Songkran will become Thailand’s fourth intangible cultural heritage.
The approval for consideration by UNESCO was disclosed by Culture Minister Itthiphol Khunpluem on April 6. The inclusion of the Songkran festival in the ICH tentative list, according to the minister, helps foster a greater appreciation and understanding of Thai culture and promotes the festival as a significant cultural heritage of the country.
An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill, as well as artifacts or cultural property, considered by UNESCO to be part of a place’s cultural heritage.
Thailand’s intangible cultural heritages currently include Khon, a dance drama genre, traditional Thai massage, or Nuad Thai, and Nora, which is an acrobatic form of dance theater and improvisational singing from southern Thailand. (NNT)
